Conical bore wood whistles

[Tim2723]

Forgive my ignorance and having lost track of so many new makers, but who besides the Sweets are making conically bored wooden whistles now?

[rhulsey]

I don't know that all of Phil Bleazey's are conical, but my bflat is.

Reg

[jemtheflute]

Jon Swayne.

[Infernaltootler]

Shaw?

Someone told me that a conical bore prevents screeching. Is this true?

[Tim2723]

I don't think Shaw makes any wooden ones, but they are conical. I think the conical bore has to do with getting the upper and lower registers in tune, and it also changes the tone of the whistle. I can tell you from personal experience though that conical whistles will screech.

[pipersgrip]

I think Fred Rose whistles are conical. My old Bleazey low d was conical as well.

[Infernaltootler]

I don't think Shaw makes any wooden ones, but they are conical. I think the conical bore has to do with getting the upper and lower registers in tune, and it also changes the tone of the whistle. I can tell you from personal experience though that conical whistles will screech.

Sorry, didn't read OP properly, shame on me.

[TunelessJoe]

garvie bagpipes makes a reverse conical low d

i did a search a couple of weeks ago and I saw the ones already mentioned, although Rose did not come in the other threads.

[Tim2723]

Please forgive another example of my ignorance, but what is a 'reverse conical' ?? I'm imagining something shaped like a trumpet.

[tegea]

Hi Tim !

All my wooden recorders are conical, but I didn't know there were some wooden conical whistles. Great information, as I like the way conical metal whistle play.

[Tim2723]

Hi Thierry! It's been a long time since we've spoken. I'm still playing your copper whistle!

(I met Thierry on an astronomy site by accident and he graciously sent me one of his hand made whistles. A very nice instrument!)

[TunelessJoe]

Hi Tim,

I don't know what a reverse conical is. I'd guess that the tube is cylinderical with a conical bore that starts out small and ends wide. But then again I never did get on "Who wants to be a millionaire."

Joe

[Scott McCallister]

Someone told me that a conical bore prevents screeching. Is this true?

It depends on how hard you hit a parrot with it

[GordonH]

If you make a cylindrical whistle its impossible to make the upper and lower octaves play in tune so what normally happens is that a compromise is made which keeps both octaves slightly out of tune and we unconsciously blow the notes into tune. A conical whistle can have the two octaves in tune. This is one reason why the bottom note on a Clarke whistle tends to be more in tune than on a cylindrical whistle.

Reverse conical is when the bore expands the further you get from the mouthpiece.
I have not seen any whistles like that but I have seen a couple that look like they might be as they have very wide ends, like some of the wooden whistles.

[jemtheflute]

I suspect clarification of terms is needed here by the poster who mentioned "reverse conical". Thing is, most other woodwind, and indeed brass family instruments are either cylindrical with a bell at the open end or a conoid that expands from the mouthpiece to the open end - and most folk, musical or otherwise, would probably think of that as "normal". The recorder and post-Hotteterre, pre-Bohm flute, plus some whistles, are in that context "abnormal" in having a bore that tapers (narrows) from the mouthpiece to the open end - for the reasons explained very well by GordonH in his first paragraph above, though I think he's probably got it wrong at the beginning of his second - depends what was meant previously! (Bohm, of course, found another solution that let him revert to a substantially cylindrical body). Therefore some folk (and I include myself) may at times refer to the normal taper of a conoid flute/whistle/recorder as "reverse" because it is in wider context the opposite of what might be expected, especially by the uninitiated - and you can include a good many Bohm-only fluters in that company. (I intend no aspersions here, BTW - this is specialist knowledge that there's no reason to expect a wider public to have, and I have personal experience of people being surprised to learn that flutes and whistles [can] get narrower down-tube, [but] not wider.....)

I've never seen or read about any flute or whistle that actually had a true expanding conoid bore, even among the crudest ethnic or historic instruments - and to make one that was playable in tune with a finger-accessible range of tone-holes would be very tricky. The outer profiles of recorders and whistles may bear little relation to the internal bore - they can be shaped for comfort and security of hold or with a view to providing greater thickness of wood to allow obliquely drilled and undercut tone-holes. A down-tube expanding or foot-flared outside probably still houses a contracting bore.